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Thursday, December 31, 2009

I hope all of you have had as much fun as I have over the holidays. I've taken a week off from blogging (although I couldn't resist keeping up with my favorites), spent a lot of quality time with my family and friends, eaten way too much good food and started exercising. Santa was good to me too-more about that later. My lifeline broke down (my iPhone) and I had to send it off, so between not having that distraction, and taking a week off from blogging, I was amazed at how much time I've had to reflect, relax and enjoy the week.

Since I've only been blogging on Calling All Sleepyheads since October, and have had a huge learning curve, I'm still discovering new things each day and starting to have somewhat of a blog identity crisis. But to wrap up 2009, I wanted to highlight my top five favorite blogs that have inspired me, plus recap my own blog posts. These are listed in no particular order and are my favs for a variety of reasons.

Deep Space Sparkle is one of the first blogs I ever started lurking around on about a year ago. It is a super creative blog that has a ton of wonderful art lesson ideas and tips for creating art with children.

Shanty2Chicinspired me to start blogging simply by giving me so many projects to want to try and great tutorials on how to do them. These sisters are so creative and generous in sharing their ideas.

Mod Podge Rocks is a treasure chest of not only creative ideas, but functional and do-able projects for the average person or even kids. Plus, I love how Amy introduces her followers to new creative people on almost every post. She's turned me into a Mod Podge Junkie.

Funky Junk Interiors is my favorite decor blog. I love to decorate and I love decorating with things that are special to me, make or get great deals on. Donna has so many fresh and fun ideas for decorating and she is so skilled with her tools! She also has a great party every Saturday night!

Art duJour has inspired and challenged me so much in my own creative journey. I've loved seeing Martha Lever's daily art journal entries so much that I've started my own art journal.

Thank you and all the others out there in the blog world for sharing my passion to create and inspiring me to keep creating and blogging!

As far as my own blog goes, I don't have a years worth of posts to pick from, but here's a few favorites....

Monday, December 21, 2009

Well the kids are out of school and bored already. What's a mom to do??? At our house it's project time-I try to keep 'em busy. And since everything I do with the kids is pretty easy and inexpensive, I thought I'd share what we did today so maybe you moms, grandmas or friends out there might try it over the holidays. You'll need some medium weight aluminum (I ordered mine from DickBlick awhile back, it's called Art Emboss Aluminum Sheets, but I think you can get aluminum sheets in craft or hardware stores), Sharpie permanent markers and scissors. You can also use heavy duty regular aluminum foil but you will need to glue it to a cardboard backing of some sort for support.

It's a pretty simple, so I'll let the pics explain the process. Be sure though to emboss the design with a blunt pencil on a piece or cardboard and then flip the ornament over before you color in with the Sharpie.

You know I like me some fun, funky colors, but I was thinking the gold and brown sharpies would look gorgeous for those of you who have the more neutral color palettes.

I love to give hand-made gifts, both that I make and that others make. And if I were more organized, I would give hand-made gifts all the time, but alas, I am very unorganized and scatter brained. I do however, do a lot of little things like this....they are an easy add-on to a store bought gift. My daughter had a birthday party today so I whipped up an ornament to attach to the present that she picked out at the store. To me that always adds a nice personal touch. I purchase these ornaments from Michael's at the end of the season on sale and then I always have them on hand to add to gifts during the holidays. Here's a couple I did today. I have fun packaging them up too. I love the zebra stripes for girls and camo design for boys--topped off with an initial. Polka dots are always fun too!

I use paint pens on ornaments-they go on smooth and shiny, dry fast and are easy to draw or write with.

You can also use acrylic paint, but you will have to seal with varnish.

This will be my last project post until after Christmas! Hope you have a WONDERFUL Christmas and take time to reflect on the true meaning of why we celebrate this holiday!

Friday, December 18, 2009

Welcome to all my new followers!!!! I'm soooooo excited to have you! And in case you missed it this week, Amy at Mod Podge featured my Decoupage Do-over this week at Mod Podge Rocks. To thank all my followers, old and new, Amy will be giving away a custom decoupage piece of art that I created with a lucky follower in mind-if you haven't signed up yet, you can still can by looking here. This is what we will be giving away.

You can......

Hang it on your china buffet.....

Spice up a lamp.....

Put it on your tree!

Or you can give it as a gift. I can't wait to hear how the winner uses it. For those of you who are new, I usually like to post at least three times a week, but with the holidays, and kids getting ready to be at home 24/7, I will be posting once a week until January. Last night I was scrambling around trying to pull together teacher gifts and I realized I didn't have any gift tags. I had to pick up some light bulbs at my neighborhood home improvement store and these caught my eye.

"What are they, you ask?" Paint and formica sample cards. A light bulb went on in my head---FREE gift tags. Yeah!!! So my kids and I did a little crafting last night. They had a blast and it cost me no dinero....we just used supplies that I already had like ribbon, puff paint, Mod Podge, jute rope, hole punches, scrapbook paper, rubber stamps, etc.... Here's what we created:

We starting off with the intention of making just gift tags....

But then the kids said, "What about ornaments?" Great idea, kids!

"Or a necklace, or an initial tag, or gifts for our friends!" I guess the possibilities are endless.

I've been featured on......

My favorite art links

Sleepyhead Art Studio

Spring Student Art Show 2008

I love my visitors! (since Oct.2009)

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About Me

I'm a wife and mom of three first, and I am humbled each day that God continues to pursue me. I know I couldn't make it through one of my crazy days without His help. My "Calgon moment" is creating. I love to paint, craft, decorate and redecorate, cook or just browse the isles of any craft store. I started this blog to share the things I create, and hopefully inspire you to do the same. I hope you find something here that "wakes up" your creative side. Thanks for stopping by!

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JUST FOR THE RECORD......

I love to create, and I love to inspire others to create. That's why I post to my blog, so I can share ideas with others. I know as an artist, I am always inspired by things other artists or crafters create. It is never my intent to copy someone's idea, I always try to put own own spin on something, or create a work of art out of something that personally inspires me; like a scripture, quote, pattern or colors, etc. I don't mind at all if you try my ideas, like art on a Pizza Box, but please make it your own. My designs are original and mean something to me, so please don't copy them, especially for the purpose of profit. Feel free to repost anything you see on this blog, (except for photos of my family) as long as you give proper credit, and I'd love to know you've done so...it will make my day! Thanks so much.